New Beginnings (Mission for Jennae Diadra)

Spoiler:

London's finest lay in sprawling gruesome and dismembered corpses scattered about, mostly with less blood than intended as their wounds seem to indicate, yet despite that, the police officers were all set up in pentagrams using their body parts all over the warehouse. The lack of response from the police officers was indicative of their complete demise, with coagulated blood pooling around their corpses. It was practically a proclamation, a challenge to whomever dared persist with their foolhardy endeavor as to share the same fate as the pool of corpses outside. Practically the area was desolate mysteriously so, but for righteous reasons.

True Cross's objective in this area as it stands, was to destroy the shipment of parasites that are contained in vials, being shipped out unto miniature submarines. To prevent the next shipments from arriving into mainland Europe, as it seems to have been gathered from a mysterious source. Outside the warehouse loomed a large gated door, with two smaller doors surrounded to the flanks that were guarded by a duo of guards each, rather well armed too at that with MP5SD at hand with lasersights, and night vision goggles as they all wore balaclavas, black BDUs, kevlar vests, and concealing gloves and boots along with helmets. Practically screaming paramilitary, with an insignia of an upside down cross within a pentagram, never before seen in the archives, yet were too well equipped to be mere newcomers in the world of the supernatural.

There were no other buildings in sight besides that huge, five story large warehouse perched in front of a large body of turbulent water, with contents in its bowels unknown. The rusted warehouse had only three entrances, the one in front being a large two door gateway that was locked shut with no sign of budging, as for the other two to the side were guarded as the sentries maintained a vigil over the scenery with perfect clarity of vision in the moonless night which was accompanied by a downpour of rain, and the occasional thunderous roar of thunder that came thumping every now and then, sparking the scenery with instantaneous light, one that only blinked into existence, and left just as quick.

There was no cover in the immediate five blocks of the area, aside from visually concealing seas that sprayed and beat against the pier's foundation, and the cars parked away from five blocks away. Other than that, the warehouse stood tallest in a terrain of flatness, with the occasional flecks of light poles that are otherwise broken, unable to illuminate the area in a disgusting incandescence.

Stopped in her approach towards her destination about a block away, concealed by the natural darkness and otherwise unseen by the prying eyes of sentries as she would be facing the main door, the likes of which had no guards stationed at it and thus leaving a blind spot for anyone to safely put eyes on the building, Jennae's blase expression of observance was only accompanied by the indifferent thoughts that she felt best described the situation. God must have hated her, or perhaps the doubts she harbored about his existence being false were true, because nothing about this scenario - at least to her - had any touch of originality to it.

A dilapidated warehouse, heavily armed individuals of paramilitary function and occult motivation, likely coerced into such by a supernatural creature if not already one themselves, and the slaughtered officials who had previously arrived to deal with the situation only to find themselves in over their head - all of which was known to her by means of the Intelligence Network of the True Cross. She'd seen it all before, time and again throughout her precarious career as a member of the True Cross, and holy fuck, was it tedious and repetitive. She'd thought, at the very least, the modus operandi of these kinds of runts would change. The hell was she thinking...? That would obviously be asking too much for someone in her position.

At least they're sticking to the classical way of singling themselves out. Nice job, jackasses... Following the thought, she reached into her pocket with an almost bored kinesics and retrieved her phone, the likes of which was casually flipped open to reveal an overheard image of the warehouse, courtesy of True Cross Intel. It wasn't overly detailed due to the restrictions of the phone itself, but it gave the general overview of the compound with enough clarity for her to plan an approach. It only took a moment for her memorize the image before flipping the phone shut and returning it to her inner-breast pocket, allowing her eyes a moment to readjust to the pitch darkness before going to retrieve one of the many packs of coffin nails inside her coat and remove one of the cancerous sticks with her teeth. Front's probably locked due to the absence of the guards, side entrances are covered with a lot of firepower, and I'm sure as hell not taking a swim just to see if I can get in the same way the boats can.

She began her train of thought by attempting to light the coffin nail with the usual indifference that she seemed to be the embodiment of, unworried as to whether or not a guard would notice. They seemed professional enough not to ditch their stations, so she remained otherwise too undaunted to care about any repercussions, as they were unlikely. However, the goddamn rain seemed to have the sole purpose of making her life even shittier than it already was. She finally tossed the now drenched coffin nail to the soaked ground with an annoyed sigh, and returned her lighter to her inner breast pocket, the hand previously holding onto it now running through her soaked, frosty white locks of hair in a display of genuine exasperation that lasted for only a moment, but could easily be read by anyone proficient in body language as fuck this rain, before returning to her thoughts. I'm left with two options; the roof entrance, which means scaling that ramshackle piece of shit by hand in this kind of weather, or kick down the front door and alert everyone and their mother than I'm here to murder the lot of them. Both are a pain in the ass..."

"Fuck it," she said, immediately embracing the fact that suicidal tactics weren't exactly new to her and the fact that, while it would be detrimental to anyone else, the option that led to the highest possible chances of death was actually far more appealing to her that most. Deft hands molded in the routines of non-stop repetition were now filled with the two weapons they were intimately familiar with, Jennae's beloved Deborah and Bathsheba, the practiced procedure they had been baptized in allowing the flexible digits of each palm to draw them with such ease that it resembles pure instinct at this point. The tails of her overcoat billowed out behind her from the sudden withdraw of the trusted weapons, accentuated the calm and utterly silent strides she began taking toward the front gate of the building, taking advantage of the downpour to muffle her approach to the best of it's ability. "Front door it is..."

The stationary sentries were bound to be unable to hear anything to begin with, considering how strong the pouring rain was that came crashing upon the otherwise shitty warehouse constructed out of cheap metalwork. That was everything except a quiet work evironment. Realizing this, those calm strides quickly grew larger as she picked up the pace in her movement, reaching a top speed rivaling an Olympic athlete within a few moments. She'd see her fair share of warehouses given her duty as one of the lower peons of the church, dealing with cultists, lower undead, and even overly zealous members of other religions trespassing into True Cross territory was nearly an every day occurrence, and the vast majority always had a warehouse somewhere. Using this prior knowledge, she knew where any locks would potentially be on larger doors on these kinds of buildings, or locks in general on any kind of door, for that matter, she knew exactly how strong they tended to be.

Rapidly approaching the destination, that being the unguarded first door, Jennae brought both of her trusted handguns before her, easily taking aim despite being in full movement. She would wait until she was at least a few meters from the door, wanting to be as close as possible before alerting everyone that a suicidal asshole of cynical disposition was about to crash their party, before firing two rounds, one from each of the weapons, into the location that the locks would likely be situated, after which she would continue the full sprint she had built up to use the momentum to remove any lesser locks that could be located on the edges of the door frame, as well as to further destroy any weakened locks that may remain should the bullets not have done the trick, with a solid kick from her boot to send the doors flying open, allowing her means to combat role inside to bring her weapons to bare, fingers on the hair triggers, against anyone stupid enough to get caught her keen sight.

The sentries posted at the flanking doors stood their vigil as a roar of lightning resounded, briefly blinding them in the flash as their nightvision goggles adjust once again to the dark light as the rain beat mercilessly against the ground, obscuring their sense of hearing, yet oddly enough they seemed to be undisturbed by such prospect, if not outright that they should've taken far more defensive positions inside and post from within one of the windows. Nonetheless Jannae's strategy was within some certain semblance of merits as she managed to make past all those corpses strewn about in front of the warehouse, probably she was either used to it, or perhaps their perforated remains were far too messy to actually constitute something that was rather immediately identifiable, thus sympathetic, thus alien to any semblance of vulgar shock. The radios flickered and flared with static that called for status report, only to be returned with everything being optimal by voice, of whomever so said it so. However, the rain's deafening slaps of droplet against the ground deafened all electronics, and even then, the radios that worked which weren't overloaded, were barely heard anyways.

The inside of the warehouse was lined with dwindling boxes, all of them metallic and notably thick, some near Jennae, and the rest so far away, apparently being loaded by non-armored individuals (dock workers) on a seafaring vessel of undetermined origin ever so far ahead of her dynamic position. Fortunately, a few crates (marked with hazardous materials symbols and a crossed skull icon) were immediately in her vicinity.

"---?!?!?!!!" The response came in grunted static, making for words too low in volume to hear adequately.

Jennae's approach did not go unnoticed for long, rather more accurately to say, the gunshots were louder than the rain, and some of the lightning roars did not coincide with the ignition of cartridges let loose, had resounded loud explosive bulletpops that no doubt alerted the occupants inside. Such intent was made clear when Jennae's entry into the building where she made her presence clear through cacophonous bursting of the door to swivel inwards was in fact met with a hail of wide spread bullets. Buckshot blasts from shotguns with much more surgically precise bullets joining in the fray, cackling from the staccato of SMGs letting loose their gun fire. It was obvious that the occupants were all just as well armed and well armored as the guard pairs outside. Orbs of singular red marked their faces as light emanated from their goggles.

The ones that were actually standing in the open, not taking cover behind steel crates marked with the insignia of hazardous materials, were the workers, with teary faces, and crestfallen features that otherwise mark their melancholy. They shouted in relief, surprise, and shock at the same time to see someone came for them, only to let loose a holler that it was but a singular person coming in. Their appearances were marred with rot, grey corpse-like leathery skins, some huge lumps of festering flesh, and even some were missing their jaws and eyes. Numbering around 12 as opposed to the obvious five gun fire shots coming from within.

Three of the armed militia had SMGs, and the two others had shotguns. They were fifteen meters apart from Jennae, ducking behind crates matching their numbers, allowing them to duck behind, which they have, all of them, only peeking out to take aim, leaving their helmeted heads exposed, but not the rest of their bodies. They were professionals about it, only so far expressing mild distaste for the sudden surprise, but thus far, within acceptable parameters. She was probably another one of those police officers.

Slowly, 3 of the rotted dock workers in the open middle of the warehouse began to mutter out profuse apologies, lumbering upwards a very clumsy aim with their Glock 17's matched with laser sighting, to open fire at Jennae, only to miss several shots. Their arms twitched, intentionally, leaving their bullets to go completely stray, if not only to comply with the wishes to shoot AT her, but not to hit her. The armored men did not seem to care much for them.

The moment Deborah and Bathsheba had been leveled to take aim within the bowels of the warehouse, was the moment Jennae's mind processed the situation in a way that could only be done by someone who had been put through relentless mental training. Spacial awareness and heightened perception, along with the already lingering possibility of what awaited her on the other side of her suicidal charge, had allowed her to register the multitude of firearms already leveled at her position.

Immediately, as if on the reflexes that did not belong to someone who longed for death to embrace them, Jennae's body sprung to the right in a heavy dive the moment she had come to the completion of her combat roll, diving to take cover behind the nearest metal crates to her right to avoid being decimated by the plethora of gunfire that had targeted her, tearing into the ground to blow away chunks of the floor and the empty space that her body had once inhabited.

The hazardous symbols on the crates she was now safely tucked behind held no meaning to the silver haired gunslinger and her suicidal inclinations. No. She firmly pressed her back against the solid surface as an ominous smirk of battle lust and the prospect of death being nigh, one so common to her now that it never even registered to her, crossed her thin lips to the point of even revealing her canines.

She had taken note of the several armed militia, as well as those dock workers, though contrary to what any of the latter thought, she was not here to save them. She was here as a clean-up crew, and no one was leaving alive unless the unmerciful God that her cult of Catholicism worshiped deemed it so, or they were children. Luckily, she counted none amongst their ranks, so as far as she was concerned they were as good as dead. Hell, most of the dockworkers already resembled revenants in their own right. Perhaps if they held more human appearances, the itchy trigger fingers belonging to her might hesitate when it came around to being their turn, but recalling their appearance now, they were already akin to walking corpses. If anything, she'd be putting them out of their misery as any slim chance of returning to a normal life was all but gone.

Perhaps that was just the reasoning she used, in order to give logic to her actions; to prevent them from returning in her nightmares once she put a bullet between their eyes... Regardless, she was here to do a job, and it was one she agreed to do. She knew the specifications before hand. She had no right to complain about or deny the contents of this mission, unlike the countless others she had done in her past. If these people wanted to haunt her despite the only act of kindness she could offer being distributed, then so be it, but it was time for her to begin her operation.

Practically jumping to her feet to stand tall from her knelt position, as if eager to mock Death itself, the portion of her body from the waist down still protected by the crates she had taken cover behind, Jennae's two hands went to work in what many would classify as an intricate dance that could be considered inconceivable for ordinary humans to preform as they went about expertly positioning Deborah and Bathsheba in line with any visual target she could gain with her icy blue stare, no matter how small, before firing with a lethal accuracy thought impossible for anyone to obtain while dual wielding; a skill forged from blood, sweat, and tears at Jennae's expense, and one that had allowed her to send abominable beings to their death with swift, unforgiving efficiency.

Luckily, this skill was primarily used in tandem with her extraordinary sense of spacial awareness that she had forged throughout her life, which gave her a remarkable ability to keep track of enemies within the space her body inhabited. In addition, the level of perception she boasted was one rivaling supernatural classification, and no details escaped the keen observational skills of her cold gaze, over all allowing her to track, locate, and otherwise engage multiple opponents with an usual ease not afforded to most. In this environment, a clustered warehouse riddled with visual-reducing obstacles, these abilities would prove invaluable to her and standout most in this situation, which only drove her to press her suicidal standoff by not ducking down for cover after firing a few times, not like a sane individual, but to continue doing so with her refined accuracy.

Self-conditioned by suicidal tendencies, any stray bullets that could be classified as a near-hit would be blocked out utterly by the white-haired woman's psyche, as if refusing to register anything short of a life threatening wound inflicted by the blade of the Reaper himself, or at least one that was guided by his skeletal hand. She would press her attack until her need to reload pulled her from the nihilistic stance in the face of oncoming fire and forced her to once again duck down.

Jennae's choice to ignore the guards outside did not go without consequences, as men from the opposing force had wheeled around and entered from behind the silver haired gunslinger of suicidal intent, that her very motions spoke of sheer paradox to her intent to die, yet that is only tactical in perspective to the strategic. The very idea of undertaking a mission where many others failed before, strategically speaking, has come to elaborate upon suicidal intent on a much more macro basis, but such facts were not registered or known to the beings that have come to trade gunfire with the gunslinger.

As she would step out of her cover, gunfire erupted from behind her from the militia totting their firearms, as they enter in a loose, spread formation, maintaining fire discipline as bursts of three rounds each ejected from the gun and towards Jennae's central back to emphasize the largest of body mass, that to increase the chances of hitting. These were not the shots of over eager cultists but people of military experience, all the while maintaining their defense as they would spread out to nearby adjacent covers, taking vigil behind the hazardous crates.

"███████."

"███████████." Committed chatter traded in banter as they acknowledged their positions and traded blindness with awareness through communication, clear and distinct loud radio static came despite the losses they incurred from the suddenness of their enemy's capability coming clearest to them. The coordination began to show as they spread looser, as the leftmost OpFor soldier began to flank, using a large crate as cover and for obscurity, as he began to sneak around, not yet coming across sight of the silver headed death dealer, for she remained obscured from him by the large metallic box he took to flanking from. His compatriots began to open fire with suppression in mind at the Akimbo wielding True Cross operative, never letting up the pressure, not giving a chance to being shot by the ungodly gunwoman's aim.

It became starkly clear as the three thralls were shot dead center of their skull within only the moment she aimed in perfect accuracy, and even two of their own soldier died. The ACOG scope on his SMG burst from the gunshot, as the completely impossible, no, to the soldiers, improbable for nothing is impossible, had occurred. The glass shattered and impaled the soldier upon bullet entry of Jennae's firearm had entered through in a perfectly aligned trajectory, meeting flesh after glass and after electronic wafers past the thermal goggles as his eye sagged into reddened pulp from the shot, as a messy hall expanded from behind his skull, and he slumped to the ground, slowly losing rigidness as his entire body form turned flaccid. The other had the horrible luck of a bullet that would have otherwise left him unscathed, as he stood sideway, instead, hit his obviously sticking out grenade. That alone caused a sudden spark and explosion to follow, not of an inferno, but of shrapnel causing a deep gash in his kevlar vest, his face, and all other dimensions left exposed to the explosive device. He staggered and fell to the ground, dead. Just like the other, turning flaccid.

The dock workers were met with confusion, relief, and sheer sorrow as their miseries were ended, albeit slowly, even as their foreheads gaped with holes, they slowly watched as life seeped out from them in coagulated blood from their wounds, pooling around their heads. Their visions blackened, and their motor reflexes slacked, only so far as to manage twitching out of their body's desire to end her life, yet could not so much as bring themselves to pull the triggers of their pistols.

The soldiers, those originally within the warehouse, remained closely hugging cover, letting only their guns and a segment of their heads peek out to aim their firearms at her whilst they persisted with their controlled bursts of shooting to keep ammo from depleting quickly from their SMGs. Those from behind Jennae mimicked such actions, but nonetheless, this did little to interrupt the wails and moans erupting deeper in the warehouse, concealed by high stacked crates making for a wall, that only a gap at the side provided entry, and those that blocked it were the soldiers in front of Jennae.

In many works of fiction, many would consider that which is predictable to be insipidly banal, lacking in both excitement, imagination, originality, and purpose. That which becomes platitudinous is uninteresting, and thus deserves to be disregarded. However, when the opposite aspect of unpredictability is viewed outside of that fictitious realm and brought into reality, the majority often find it unquestioningly terrifying. It plays upon the innate trepidation which lingers in the human mind; the fear of the unknown. Why was this? What would bring about such a curiously contradictory change in perspective?

The answer to this is that the hazards becomes quite real, the means to foresee them are stripped away. When predictability is lost, insecurity, risk, peril, and danger are free to dance about the conscious mind in a flood of foreboding unease, and the thought of injury or death becomes a detrimental reaction inspite of it being a natural anxiety in threatening situations.

This is where Jennae differed from most other individuals. The intrinsic sentiments that would lead to panic, fueled by adrenaline infused instinct attempting to keep the body alive, did not exist within the gunslinger, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they had become naturally assuaged and deadened by lacking desire to truly live. Jennae remained untethered to the angst of death, which held a primeval hold of innate fear upon the rest of the human species, and thus remained unperturbed in the face of situations that brought forth such possibilities and was otherwise immune to it's psychological effects...

The guardsmen that were stationed outside of the compound hadn't been disregarded, but merely bypassed for the sake of simplicity, and thus she, as would anyone with a modicum of common sense, had been expecting them to be alerted once the operation she had been tasked with carrying out began, and she knew where they would be arriving. She did, after all, leave the doors open for them. Even further, it was only basic tactics to pin an enemy in crossfire should one obtain the opportunity, and they ceased it as expected, and with military precision, no less.

The refined spacial awareness that the gunslinger had procured through relentless training gave the insight required to react, already having memorized the fundamental layout of the warehouse's interior from the time she had began the shootout, in addition to the number of targets therein that she was assigned to eliminate, and thus the white haired gunslinger reacted with an almost inhumanly calm disposition despite the overwhelming disadvantage in numbers that bore down upon her. A display of superb reaction brought about an instance of professional footwork immediately upon the gunslinger's realization of the pincer attack, which was mere moments before the gunfire from behind had begun.

Pivoting, torquing and darting the left in an expedient retreat to the aforementioned direction to put the entire situation into the view of her icy blue eyes trailing azure; the targets originally in the warehouse now being to her left, those having entered from the front to her right, while at the same time allowing the now empty magazines the fall from Deborah and Bathsheba so as to reload them expertly in the same instance as the hail of gunfire tore into the container she had once been using for cover a moment later and bullets tore through the air around her moving form with intent to bring lethal harm.

The suicidal gunslinger would instantly followup these notions by suddenly and powerfully pushing from the ground with all of the leg strength she possessed, throwing herself into a backwards lunge that would have a landing zone protected by group of several other steel containers that would provide protection from the left's lead onslaught and give an ample opportunity to trim down the numbers of those who had just arrived. Leveling both of the newly reloaded weapons towards those who had attempted to flank from the rear in the middle of the backwards lunge, in which the aim would be maintained even upon the abrupt landing she would have upon her back, she would once again open fire with the deadly accuracy she previously displayed.

Half dropped on both sides of Jennae's onslaught as the gunshots were not aimed at their armoring, but hit them squarest at their faces, that for all the helmets, all the goggles they wore, the masks, it did little to impede the bullets as their faces bore the brunt of the assault. Falling to the ground, those corpses soon became flat as nothing but blackened ooze fizzling with smoke rose out of their uniforms, and a death screech that came signalling their imminent demise. The men were not uninspired nor lazy with their movements, as deep within the warehouse's bowels, whatever perverse actions being done that produced such guttural sounds and light of ominous colouring, had ceased, followed by a series of footsteps, not going closer to Jennae, but rather parting farther from her as they became faint, not that the sounds mattered what with the gunshots keeping up with suppression around her general figure, as loathe they are to admit, now concealed from cover, that they too had sought to adopt the same approach, going behind containers about waist-high that both teams had conveniently close by. The bullets from her guns now, as they were aimed at them, were no longer endangering them... immediately, tearing into the metallic crates instead waist-high as they were that those taking cover sequestered themselves into a crouched hunch downward, on their knees they stood.

Those that were entering behind Jennae's former back, had one more of their numbers fall to her gunfire, as they finally had taken to cover, and the others had sustained no more loss after half their ranks fell to this woman whose sensory perception were heightened beyond belief in the most esoteric of ways not mystical nor supernatural, that perhaps due to discipline. Their minds vacant of any fear, only dwelling in a cadence of death clouding their minds, with a singular purpose driving their hands forward as tactics came into mind within the paramilitary men. Those opposite of the entrance entering group, another of their number from behind the crate, had waited for Jennae's gunfire to cease, as a pin was taken out, and a certain spherical object seemed to be primed. For a period of two seconds, he waited, with much practice, cooking in his hand the explosive, that he had flung the object of death overhead and unto the woman's cover right before her front on the ground beneath, that a second had passed. It was ready for an explosive finish.

"████████████████" Came further response in static deeper within the warehouse a guttural order, audibly and loudly, as those that were formerly in front of Jennae when her back faced the entrance, slowly, through suppression fire maintained, with the other half of their paltry few numbers, reloading, under the cover of the crates, had retreated backwards, with their other half number keeping hold.

The roar of engines came that grumbled a laughter of the mechanical spurred to life, as whatever was happening here, seemed to have activity coming anew, if only to commit it elsewhere in a leave. The rest were sacrifices, that much was made clear to their manner of tactics, as their very precision came mechanical despite their otherwise organic nature. Whomever they were, they were not machines, but rather elite compared to a layman, but ultimately expendable.